The people that operate Occupy Homeless believe that by supporting each other and working as community, we can bring about positive change for all. It is in the giving of time and lifting people up that we make a difference. We are glad that You wish to assist us in these efforts.

Tag: Employment

Here’s a 13 minute video, linked below, that addresses some of the major problems of the system to keeps homelessness going. It also offers some realistic solutions.
~ gnat

Hiding The Homeless – November 23, 2015

A growing number of American cities are ticketing or arresting homeless people for essentially being homeless. The new laws ban behavior commonly associated with homelessness like reclining in public, sharing food or sitting on a sidewalk.

Supporters argue these measures are necessary to push homeless people into the shelter system and maintain public safety. Critics say the laws violate the rights of homeless people and ignore the more complicated drivers of homelessness like mental illness.

We found homeless people camping in the woods to escape police harassment, a homelessness consultant opposed to feeding homeless people and a city that uses solitary confinement to force homeless people into shelters.

VICE News began its investigation in Boise, ID, where a group of homeless people have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of these laws. Their case could change the way homeless people are treated across the country.

Do You Have a Story to tell?? We want to publish that on this website and our Facebook page! Come on, don’t be shy! And if you are, we’ll happily help you with a alias so that your identity can be kept private.

this is a test to figure out the placement of tags and wtf categories are…

“Sure, sign me up for a life of servitude and abject poverty, where all of my labor enriches ‘the ruler’, so that he can live a life of leisure and plenty. I’ll strip the land that i live upon bare for years without end, so that the ‘Land Lord’ can have a nice house and things created from the resources that once gave my people enough. Let me work away my life and health, only to be discarded once my use to the Master is gone. Then once i have nothing, I’ll beg for a little food and safe shelter, and live a painful while longer with the name that the Owner of my worth calls me – “the taker”.” ~ tom garner

Goodwill Industries a great place for low income families; or so it would seem. You can walk in with twenty dollars, and walk out with two bags full of clothes. Just a nice clean thrift store, helping out in the communities; or so it would seem.

Goodwill Industries, a tax-exempt, non profit, generates more than five million dollars in annual revenue. Executives get paid a six to seven digit salary, but pays its employees twenty two cents per hour; which is all legal. I did not say it was right, I said it was legal. Goodwill employs the disabled, the Fair Labor Standard Act of 1938 gives the employer the right to pay people with disabilities sub-minimum wages.

A bill called Transitioning to Integrated and Meaningful Employment (TIME), was introduced to Congress in January 2015. This bill would phase out the special wage certificate, the bill reached the floor in April 2015, but the bill is still alive.

In 1938 TIME seemed to be a good idea, but in 2016 it has been way out dated. So the next time you decide to donate think about the men and women making slave wages, to benefit who?

There was a time when we saw a person in need, and handed him/her clothes free of charge. Now in this society we think about giving to Goodwill for a small tax break, not thinking that the man/woman that needed those clothes, will now have to find the money they don’t have, to buy them.

This sort of story is so common that many of us homeless folks barely mention it anymore. If you’d like to meet the worst sort of people, try getting housing with a very little money or while homeless. It’s almost guaranteed that you’ll get ripped off or worse.

Besides low paid jobs, housing costs and deposits are our biggest obstacles. The fastest way that i know of to become homeless is to get in the wrong area, by trusting some property owner. Sure, they have it rough, the probably get a lot of low-life’s that tear up their property. But does that justify them overcharging and gaming the system to cheat everyone else?

And while i’m on this topic, maybe now would be a good time to mention the mental and emotional toll all of this has on person. As you may see, J and i are not weak-hearted and i think we’re both rather intelligent. What may not come through in words is, we’re also rather brave and will address problems head on. We’re both more stubborn than an old mule and don’t get pushed so easily.. lol, this makes it tough between us at times, 😉 but it’s given us both a resolve to make it through the tough things in life. The things that generally stop other folks. We just don’t quit and never give up. Sadly, that’s not so for most folks.

Humans can only take so much rejection and/or abuse. We give up. We get crushed under the hopelessness of it all. Many will have some sort of breakdown. Others, turn to drugs or alcohol for relief. Others find themselves selling themselves for a meal and/or a warm bed… even if that bed is a high-priced back ally motel.. these things eat your heart, mind and spirit… we despair and die a little at a time until there is nothing left of us… those are the ones that most people see, our broken ones.

None of our words on this page/s are meant to shame you or us… we’re really hoping to gain some understanding, a little peace with all of this mess. We hope that your understanding will help us to bring about the needed social changes to prevent this from getting worse… and maybe even to turn it all around and end homelessness, once and for all.

Now, this post started because i’d read an article By Terrence McCoy, at the Washington Post called: ‘The confounding story of the disabled veterans who went weeks in winter without heat — and then were evicted ‘ and it can be found at this link: https://goo.gl/A1W8Gm